


» This Is Not The End «

by sebaestianstan



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), BECAUSE THIS SETS OFF AT THE END OF THE MOVIE, Character Death, Endgame, Endgame spoiler, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Feels, Fix-It, Happy Ending, IS2G IF YOU DIDN'T WATCH THE MOVIE YET DON'T READ IT, M/M, S P O I L E R, Spoiler Alert - Freeform, because i will make one, fit-it avengers, for all of us, post-Avengers: Endgame, spoiler - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-31 06:05:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18585310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebaestianstan/pseuds/sebaestianstan
Summary: SPOILER WARNING FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME!This fic sets off after the ending of the movie. Can't tell more not to spoiler. Please read it and let me know whether you'd like me to continue, I'm burning like fucking fire and need a fucking happy-happy ending which is to my liking. If Marvel won't give it to me, I will write it myself. -angry hissing, in tears tho-





	» This Is Not The End «

„So. . . this is it.“

A likewise calming and fraught silence was lying over them, blunting the slight chirping of the birds in the trees far above their heads that sounded down onto them, the chirring of the crickets that were enjoying the sunny, warm weather, the swooshing of the small stream that makes its rounds through the rich green of the vegetation imperturbably close-by to them like nothing ever happened.

Like Thanos never existed.

Bucky's calm gaze placed itself upon Steve's aged facial features that seemed so foreign that it made the stormy grey of his irides shine, as if a hurricane was thrashing in them, tearing down anything that came its way – and that's just what it felt like. His insides cramped up in a similar way like his hands did as they curled around the brittle wood of the bench which he had found Steve sitting on.

Sam left them on their own for a moment, after he put down the shield close to Steve's left, throwing him a long, intense look that indeed had been silent and non-verbal, but couldn't have been any heavier with meaning. His hazelnut eyes had had the expression that was now in Bucky's grey ones as he examined the soft, wrinkled skin, those eyes which he had loved so much ever since: the glowing and shining in them, whenever Steve had talked about something he loved, or when he had held a paintbrush or a piece of charcoal between his fingers.

When he had looked at Peggy.

“Did you live a happy life?”

His voice sounded raw and harsh and would have scared himself if he didn't already expect it to sound like it due to the suffocating feeling, that was choking his throat in its iron grip that felt as if Stark himself had wrapped his arm, clad in his armor, around him to grant him with the same fate which the Winter Soldier had brought upon his mother all those years ago.

God. _Stark._

Clearing his throat quietly, Bucky tried desperately to relax the grip around the wood but when a faint cracking sound reached his ears which caused Steve to look to the floor, he knew that he failed miserably. His old friend knew exactly what he was feeling right in this moment. He always did, after all.

“Yes. I did.”

The answer, as steady and true it might have sounded, took its time, got out of his mouth almost hesitating, as if Steve had to think through his choice of words, taste them on his tongue, calculating whether he could say them like this or not. And it seemed as if they tasted to his liking because it didn't take long until the gaze out of azure eyes found Bucky's, causing the hurricane within them to implode.

“I've loved her for my whole life, Buck. She was there when no one believed in me and I saw it in her eyes. She loved me, too. So when I got the chance. . .”

Cut off by Bucky's flesh and blood hand which got lifted, calmly and so controlled that this soft motion could have cut the air, his words died out and he became quiet, trying to get rid of the lump in his throat, just like Bucky tried to do. But both of them failed.

“You don't have to justify yourself, least in front of me, Steve. I know what Peggy means to you and I know which sacrifices you had to make to be standing there where you are today, where you were standing just a few moments earlier. It. . . It was your goddamn right to act like this. You deserve a happy and fulfilled life.”

And Steve really did. All those things he left behind, that immense loss and abdication of all the things that could have made him happy which he took willingly without as much as blinking or batting an eyelash – all of that for those people around him, always for the others, never for himself. All the pain. All the _loneliness_. Yes, Steve really did deserve a life in which Margaret Carter was by his side and in which they grew old together.

Bucky knew it.

And yet he couldn't do a single thing against the icy clump of grief that started to spread in the pit of his stomach, the knowledge that he would be losing him. His best friend, since childhood, the man he – yes. The man he always loved, one way or another. One way, he could admit to himself. The other one? Not so much. And just this one caused his heart to cramp painfully just now as his hand lowered down again to come to a rest on Steve's thinner thigh that got weakened by age, who immediately closed his own fingers around Bucky's, like he didn't even have to think about doing that, following his instinct.

A moment of silence fell upon the two men who shared so much, in another life, another dimension, that it almost appeared macabre that Bucky looked like he was far from scratching the fourties mark while Steve's body started to bend beneath the heavy weight of being over a century old.

How long would it take, he wondered, until he would give up the fight against time? Until life would take what it had to take and Steve would breathe out his last, dying breath?

The thought choked Bucky up to an extent that he couldn't stop the small gasp that followed his trail of thoughts entirely which Steve of course didn't miss. His pale fingers closed even harder around Bucky's, his thumb rubbed gently over the back of the former assassin's hand and his eyes became hazy. The touch of once so strong hands resembled a butterfly's kiss, that sat down on the pale cheek of a child on a mild summer day – oh, how clear was the image that Bucky could see in front of his eyes, as two boys, impossibly older than ten springs, were lying in a park, brimming of life; the stronger one of the two lying on his back, his left hand extended towards the sky to prevent the warm rays of sunlight to burn his face and blind him, while the skinnier one right next to him had his tongue locked between his teeth, a visibly used sketchbook on top of his lap, both his fingers and the tip of his nose black with the charcoal which was chasing over the paper in an indefatigable way to capture his best friend's facial features, the smile of a single moment, for eternity on dead wood.

“. . . I'm so sorry, Buck.”

A hard gulp followed his words and when he lifted his face to look from their joined hands into Bucky's face, who seemed like he had been far, far away for a moment, in a life which was just as much his own as the life of another man, it seemed as if the sea in Steve's eyes found a leak, pouring out now into freedom. He held back the tears, desperately, but Bucky, who knew Steve better than very likely even himself, noticed by the faint trembling that caught his lips and chin that he was fighting with his tears and probably going to lose – which should be confirmed a handful of heartbeats later.

“I wish I could have saved you, too.”

The confession pulled the rug out from under Bucky's feet and made him flinch, so softly, that Steve probably wouldn't even have noticed it if he wouldn't have felt the jerking motion on his own hand. Uncomprehending, Bucky was staring at him and started to shake his head, tightening the grip of his hand – more likely, he turned himself towards Steve now so that the upper part of his body was fully facing him now to look straight into his face as he also closed the cool fingers of his vibranium hand around the fragile appearing hand of his friend's.

“You saved me. Back then – and you did it now.”

“How could you say that?” Steve's reply came in an instant, as if he just waited to spill out those words that were burning on his tongue, threatening to scorch his mouth.

“I left you alone, Buck. When you – when you fell, I should have followed you, should have saved you. The serum could have saved us both and then –“

“Then what?”, Bucky fell into his words right away to stop him from saying nonsense, feeling how his lips pulled into a soft smile drenched in sadness. God, it hurt so much seeing him like this, knowing that he blamed himself all those years for something that hadn't been his fault, that had been out of his control. Steve couldn't have done a single thing, absolutely nothing – except for the this one thing he finally _did_ do after way too many decades – living his own life.

“Then HYDRA would have gotten the both of us, the world would have turned into a dark place full of death with two Super Soldiers and without Captain America. You saved the world, Steve. You saved all of us and while. . .”

His voice broke as he swallowed hard, the burning behind his eyes almost unbearable by now and in the same moment in which Steve reciprocated both his look and smile, the brunette couldn't hold back the tears any longer. Hot, they fell from his lashes, down his bearded cheeks, losing their way in his beard that got thicker with time and hid the tiredness that bit its fangs into his system, just like HYDRA and their trigger words used to do some time ago. He was just so tired. So goddamn tired.

“. . . while Stark paid the price with his life, you had the chance to live yours. Don't regret it, Steve. Not a single day or thing about it. Peggy didn't deserve this and Stark doesn't, either.”

Bucky's throat was so dry that a quiet, a clicking noise resembling sound broke the silence between the two men that held each other – as well as with their hands as with their gaze, knowing full well that this could be one of the last moments they got to spend together. Now that Steve put down the shield and placed it in Sam's hands. . . Did the blonde veteran even have a reason, a reason for which it was worth to keep on fighting, still? Peggy passed away and he himself. . . He couldn't be to Steve what he wanted or needed him to be. It was impossible.

“Don't regret that you finally took something for yourself.”

Bucky broke the grasp of his hand and lifted it to cup Steve's cheek with it, his gaze anchored in those blue orbs while Steve was equally unable to look away. Instead, he sat there petrified to the spot and felt how those cool fingers brushed past his cheek into his hair, where they placed themselves with a soft pressure into his neck, where they stopped and gave him a weird but welcomed sense of safety. 

Silence. A deep gaze.

And then, Bucky applied some more pressure to Steve's neck to pull him closer, leaning his forehead against his best friend's, the only person who he had left and who would soon be leaving him as well because time didn't want it any other way. Keeping his eyes closed, the soldier allowed himself a short moment of inner peace and enjoyed the closeness they were sharing right this moment; he was sharing it with Steve who was staring at Bucky with a look the brunette didn't even notice due to his closed eyes as if Bucky just held the whole world in his hands and maybe he did just that. 

Because Steve _was_ his world, always has been.

And both of them knew that this was their farewell now.

Sam would take Steve's place as Captain America and Bucky would make sure that the immense heritage which the Falcon accepted would be honored and protected. He would support him wherever he could, forgotten were the fights and differences they used to have in their past because both of them owed it to Steve, to honor his legacy and make sure that no one, not even in a hundred, two hundred years would forget about who Steve Rogers was.

Each and every one's one and only Captain.

“Promise me to take care of yourself. Make the best out of it”, Bucky whispered, almost inaudible and when he started to pull away by letting go of Steve's neck, the latter got caught by a sense of panic, because he wasn't done yet. He didn't say anything yet. Only one half of those things that had been coursing in his mind and heart, thundering deep inside of him, had found its way to the surface, and Bucky, who just placed both of his hands to each of Steve's cheeks to bend over and press a tender, soft kiss that was shredding his heart into pieces to his forehead, didn't know everything.

Steve couldn't leave it like this.

He wasn't allowed to.

“What if this wasn't the end yet?”

Confused, Bucky opened his eyes and rubbed Steve's cheekbones with his thumbs, totally without even realizing it, his gaze, hazed with tears, locked onto his friend's features, without understanding what he just said. What? Not the end yet? How couldn't this be the end, now that Thanos was defeated, now that Stark saved them and Steve had lived his life? Steve's path had found its end and it was time that he came to a rest, that he allowed himself the peace he deserved more than anyone else, before he would have to start his last journey as well. A journey on which Bucky would have accompanied him, if Steve would have been sitting next to him in his younger version, full of life and vitality, strong, shining, determined to protect the life of those who couldn't protect themselves at Bucky's and Sam's side. 

But it was over.

“What if I – Bucky, can you promise me to listen to me and not interrupt me, even if you think I might be doting? _Please_?”

His eyes were so full of hope, so fervently that for a moment, Bucky found the feeling of hope inside of his chest reciprocated although it scared the hell out of him. Because there was no hope left anymore, not for the two of them.

In that moment in which Steve had decided to take care of the Infinity Stones and live his life at Peggy's side he had decided agaist Bucky – a fate which he took willingly because he knew that all those things the agent was able to give Steve were far out of his reach. He could never fulfill Steve like that, so he took it, swallowed it down and would hold him close to his heart until the end of days reached him himself. Yeah, he accepted it and, by God, he was happy for Steve for finally finding closure, but it hurt. It hurt so much. 

When Bucky allowed himself for a split second to be honest with himself, this decision tore his heart into pieces but he wouldn't do a damn thing and let Steve know about it. He didn't deserve that; Bucky had caused enough trouble already in this new life they had the chance to meet again in, had taken so much from him, that he didn't dare to ask for anything for himself. He didn't deserve these things anyway, he wasn't worth to have them. First, he had taken his best friend from him by falling from the train in this goddamn winter night, only to cost Steve's life as well, after he blindly crashed the plane into the ice without caring about any consequences or losses for that matter – and his biggest loss was Peggy and the life he could have led next to her. And then, he crashed him into chaos once more by showing up as a murdering assassin, a person who was so different from the one that Steve used to know that it was a damn charade to save him because he simply wasn't worth all the loss, didn't weigh enough.

And yet Steve had done it without hesitating. He put up with losing and outright destroying this special friendship that had connected him and Stark, throwing down his shield, losing everything, taking a status as a wanted man, a _fugitive_ only to help Bucky. How could the latter ask for something for himself after all of this? Damn right, he couldn't. 

“I promise.”

He knew that it was egoistic to even listen to what Steve had to say instead of just getting this idea out of his head again, beating it out of his thick skull quite literally if necessary, but Bucky, who had suffered himself as well, more than he would ever admit to anyone else, let alone because he was convinced that he deserved every single thing that had happened to him for those horrible things he had done to other, innocent people, was holding onto that small spark of hope that started to bloom deep inside of his chest and got fed by the equal spark in Steve's eyes who almost seemed relieved after hearing Bucky's promise: his lips parted the tiniest bit and his eyes were shining, before his expression became so determined that it probably would have made Bucky feel dizzy if he wouldn't already have been in a sitting posistion. 

“Okay. Okay. I. I know that I – what I will say now might not make any sense to you but I've had a fair amount of time” - a laugh, sad and yet full of hope escaped Steve's throat, resemblig a chuckle - “to think it through and I – Peggy was the woman of my life, I've always loved her, probably ever since I laid my eyes on her back then in the Fourties. But. . . I know that I've been selfish. That by making this decision, I took myself from you, knowing that you would be here, waiting for me.”

Steve looked into his eyes without as much as blinking, a tear that fell from his lashes did so straight onto his thumb which was still lying against his cheek and without even noticing it, he wiped away those salty droplets that were following the first one. He seemed transfixed as he stared at Steve, like he just saw him for the first time – and one way or another he did, because to himself, it never have been granted to grow old together with his best friend, just like they had promised to each other innumerable years ago, in a cold winter night in which Steve's asthmatic body had been rattled and shaken by a life threatening pneumonia, in a night, in which Bucky had undressed both of them until they were as naked as the day they had been born to pull Steve against his chest, underneath each and every single mothy blanket he had been able to find, desperately trying to keep him warm to rip him out of Death's claws who had been waiting around each corner everyday to take Steve away from him.

_“You're not gonna die on me, punk. We gonna grow old together, ya promised. Death won't happen, not on you, neither on me and when we're a hundred years old, we gon' laugh about this. Promise. Promise me, Steve.”_

And Steve had promised.

“And I thought, that – if you would have me, I could -”

The deep breath Steve took in caused his aged lungs to rattle under its force which only brought to Bucky's attention that they probably really didn't have much time anymore. Half a year, maybe a whole year if Steve's body would be able to take it, after all those years and exertions to keep functioning, since his mind seemed to have found its peace; at least Bucky thought it did.

But now Steve was sitting next to him, facing him, and seemed to have planned something that would change both of their fates once more because after he seemed to have collected himself, he opened his mouth another time to give a voice to his thoughts – and what he said made Bucky feel as if he just received a harsh slap and the kiss of salvation at the same time.

“After having a life with Peggy. . . the life I always wanted. . . I might have a solution for getting the life I always needed – _with you_.”

Nervousness seemed to be pouring out of each of Steve's pores, letting his skin breathe normally but now it got suffocated beneath the thin layer of cold sweat as fear gripped his heart, hard, while everything inside of Bucky froze as if HYDRA had him back in their grasp, putting him back on ice, freezing his body and taking his life away from him, again and again, all over again, just that his heart didn't freeze the same way, no: it started to beat so fast that he would probably have passed out if not for the serum that was running through his veins, but instead he was sitting there, completely petrified while the burning around his irides got stronger and stronger.

“What are you saying. . .?”

Finally, some movement came into Steve as he reached for Bucky's hands with both of his own, holding them tightly before pressing Bucky's right one against his chest, right against where his heart was beating – and Bucky could feel it very clear despite the fact that it was beating weaker now than it had been beating just some moments before.

“ _Till the end of the line_ , pal and I meant every word of it. This is – this is not the end of our line yet. It can't be. I know that. . . I've always felt something I couldn't put a name to and now that I've lived a heavy amount of years at the side of the woman I loved more than my life I realized that there – that there also always had been a man I've been in love with. Always, ever since that man had been a boy and saved me in a dirty back alley from getting my face broken in. Saved me so many times afterwards, my life, my soul, my heart.”

The hand that was pressing Bucky's against his chest started to tremble, accommodating to the tremor that rushed through Steve's chin, making him look like a man who tried to beg for something with his eyes for which he was too scared to ask for with his mouth. But just as Bucky wanted to ask what he was implying - _because it simply couldn't be true_ – Steve opened his mouth another time and sent Bucky spiraling down for good.

“I've always loved you, Bucky. You're the man I've always loved and will love till my dying breath.”

Deafening silence crashed upon and around Bucky's complete organism although the heat that burst through his veins all of a sudden made his organs scream. It felt like Steve just set him on fire with his words while they sounded in his head like an echo that felt unheard and penetrated his mind over and over again with a strength and stubbornness that made his knees buckle because it felt like those words tried to rip down those walls he had built up to protect himself, first in a time that had been ruled by homophobia and then within HYDRAs grasp where feelings had been forbidden and outright killed straight from the beginning – and it worked. His walls broke without any resistance.

Bucky's eyes were burning so badly that he had to blink which finally caused the dam to break. Without even noticing it himself which meant that he couldn't stop them even if he wanted to, hot tears were falling from his eyes, his forehead frowning in pain as his fingers dug into the shirt that Steve was currently wearing. It was impossible to let go of him. 

“And if you would give me the chance, if you would want to have me. . .” Slowly, Steve moved the hand that wasn't still holding Bucky's unrelenting like he wanted to anchor himself although he stopped _Bucky_ from completely losing himself, to the pocket of his jacket that was neatly lying next to him, pulling out a small phial that was filled to the brim with a red liquid which Bucky didn't really understand – Steve saw the confusion in his eyes because Bucky didn't get in contact with them except for finding out what Steve had been planning to do; go back in time and make the egoistic decision to live in another dimension without him. 

And Bucky probably had known about what Steve had decided to do. The hug they had shared had felt so final, his words, he would miss him resembled a farewell, knowing full well that there would be a version of James Buchanan Barnes that wouldn't be lucky enough to get to meet Steve Rogers in this new, scary life that was called the 21st century – God, was that version of him still killing innocents under HYDRAs control? – and the fact that a part of him would be lonely in this world didn't stop him from letting Steve go because he knew that Steve did it for himself. Bucky had known and didn't stop him because he loved Steve more than his life and wanted him to be happy more than anything else.

“Peggy knew. She knew it all along. And she told me, if I ever would have had the possibility to make it right for you, if you didn't fall. . . She told me that it was okay. And I – I think that she's right. It's okay. It's okay that I love you, and if I can make it happen that we meet again, just like we did in this world, if I un-do it. . . we could be together. Side by side. Our fight is not over yet.”

His eyes drowned in hope, Steve looked up from the phial into his best friend's face, the only man he had ever loved – and when he saw the tears in the grey eyes, he knew that there was still hope. Hope for the two of them. Bucky didn't judge him for his emotions and he didn't push him away – God, _there was still hope_!

“But. . . what about Peggy, your life? And the others? Won't that change – _today_?”

Bucky didn't even dare to hope. That Steve would return to him, the Steve that physically was still in his thirties, taking back the shield - 

“What about _Captain America_?”

The smile that appeared on Steve's face soon after made Bucky's stupid heart skip a dangerous beat or two, while it crushed his chest at the same time beneath all the weight that the blonde had had to carry along with the shield in all those past years, decades even.

“I think Sam will make a pretty good job. But I can still help, you know. Just as – as Nomad. Help where it's needed, just like you, just with the difference that. . . that saving the world wouldn't be the purpose of our lives no more but having each other. _Living_. I want to live my life with you, Buck, because I love you and I dare to hope to make you happy and make it up to you for all those years I've failed you and caused you pain. I want you to live your life as well and I would give everything to be at your side when you do so.”

Nimble fingers curled around the phial made of glass, shortly followed by a court nod. “I know that it's going to work out because I've had enough time to think through every single scenario. I know it. I just. . . I just need to know if you want to have me by your side, if what I do isn't just another act of selfishness because I – I know how to save Tony. How to bring him back, how to un-do his sacrifice without making another one.”

Looking intently at Bucky, Steve squeezed his hand once more.

“I found a way for all of us to be happy.”


End file.
